8 Kansas Academy of Science. 



But who shall describe the powers and capabilities of the living 

 . mind ? What words are mighty enough to tell the lofty heights 

 it can scale? The profound abysses it can fathom; it can travel 

 on untiring wing through the vast realm of space; it can ransack 

 the ample storehouse of nature and bring the gems and gold to the 

 light of day; it can bend the very elements to its control; it can 

 oblige the air, the fire and the water to do its bidding; it can har- 

 ness airy vapor in bands of steel and drive it with thundering 

 speed along the iron road; it can make the sun its artist and com- 

 pel him to burn upon polished plate the features of its friendp. 

 Yea more, it can stay the lightning in its course and send it 

 obedient on its errands; it can sweep the outskirts of space, com- 

 mune with suns and systems, learn their size, compute their dis- 

 tance, and track their orbits. The mountain is rooted to its place, 

 the sun confined to its course, and the ocean must ebb and flow 

 within its appointed limits; but who shall set a bound to the range 

 of the living mind ? Who presume to say to it, thus far shalt thou 

 come and no further? Well did that eloquent orator say in his 

 matchless discourse on the use of astronomy, the earth moves, and 

 the great sweeping tides of air move, and the empires of men move, 

 and the world of thought moves, ever onward and upward to 

 higher facts and bolder theories. Physical things are moving; so 

 the mind of man is ever moving too; but the former will reach 

 their limit in the narrow circles of time before the latter stretches 

 the illimitable area of eternity. 



If we analyze the wonderful sensibilities of the mind we but in^ 

 crease our conception of its grandeur. The nerves of sensation 

 which traverse the body are numerous, varied and delicate, yet how 

 unworthy are they if compared with that harp whose thousand 

 strings are strung within the mind. Every spirit, whether of joy 

 or sadness, of hope or fear, desire or disappointment, of love or 

 hate, of rapture or despair, sweep those chords and bring out re- 

 sponsive murmurs. What an ocean of feeling lies within the 

 human heart — now slumbering in repose, now gently stirred with 

 emotion, now swept into fury by the blast of passion, now calmed 

 into stillness by the breath of love. What large capabilities of 

 friendship, patriotism, philanthropy and piety, what deep sensi- 

 bilities of joy or woe are cradled there. The mind is capable of 

 bliss that exceeds the rapture of angels, or wretchedness that sur- 

 passes the anguish of fiends. 



With what material thing can you compare the human mind? 

 As well might you liken a painted bubble, vanishing into air, to a 



